


Insight

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Loveless, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 17:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10443375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: This is not actually the way Carlos expected to become a Sacrifice.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Archiving old fic from 2013 - I actually haven't listened since ep 33, from the looks of things, so everything I post will likely be terribly non-canon-compliant. No comment spoilers, please--I do intend to get caught up!
> 
> I'm not really in a fandom until I do a ridiculous crossover with Loveless. XD And I'm pretty sure the nametouching thing is just my own headcanon--it's been a while since I've watched/read Loveless!--but I'm always up for making a pervy thing even more pervy. ♥

Lulled by the long stretch of perfectly-straight interstate and the dusty sameness sprawling endlessly as far as the eye could see, Carlos nearly drove right past Exit 6 without blinking. It wasn't much of an exit, just a slow, meandering curve of asphalt that intersected with a two-lane highway heading from nowhere to nowhere. Blinking away his road hypnosis, he stepped on the brake a little harder than he would have liked, shooting a nervous glance at his rear view mirror. The road at his back was empty, thank God. At least he'd noticed the turn in time; the roads circling Night Vale were byzantine at best, only a few crossing at any point.

The radio was playing a soft, staticky hum as he pulled up to the stop sign at the end of the curve, checking for nonexistent traffic out of habit. He would have been able to see another car coming for miles, but it never hurt to be cautious. As he looked to the left, toward Night Vale, the radio gave a warbling hum, a hollow echo of a voice tuned just half a degree off-frequency buzzing through. Reaching absently for the dial, Carlos eased it back and forth like a safecracker, searching for that sweet spot that would give him--

 _"Hello, listeners,"_ a deep, male voice crooned with astonishing clarity, the sound filling the inside of Carlos' car--or maybe it only seemed that way, the way external stimuli tended to distort when you were in _tremendous pain, Jesus, what the fuck?_

Gasping, dimly grateful he'd been waiting at a perfectly superfluous stop sign at the time, Carlos wrenched his hand from the dial and pressed his shoulders back into his seat, clutching at his wrist. The radio was at least twenty years old, custom-installed once he'd heard what Night Vale did to digital models, but it shouldn't have been able to shock him--if that had been a shock. The strange, prickling rush that surged through him had felt more like standing in the middle of an electrical storm, and it wasn't actually his hand that was hurting. It was his head that felt like someone had just gashed it open with a dull knife, the skin of his brow aching miserably when he frowned.

Reaching up to examine his stinging forehead, he sucked in a sharp hiss of breath as the pain flared up immediately. What on earth...?

 _"Er,"_ the voice on the radio said after what Carlos dimly realized was an abnormally long silence. _"Sorry about that, listeners. And for the twenty-eight percent of you lucky enough to be one half of a pair, I...don't know if you're experiencing the same feedback, but--"_

Conquering an odd surge of dread, Carlos reached up to angle the rear view mirror towards himself, seeing first his own dark eyes, glassy with pain and confusion, and then--

There was a...mark, right in the center of his forehead. Not a bump or a bruise; it looked more like a tattoo, stark black lines in the shape of an open, stylized eye.

Carlos stared. He had a Third Eye. A _Third Eye._ Inked into his _skin,_ and Jesus, how did that--was he missing time? Tattoos _took_ time, he knew that much; hours to make and days to heal--or was that weeks? _Was_ it a tattoo? Maybe he'd been abducted by frat boys with access to knockout drugs and a Sharpie.

Licking the tips of two fingers, he reached up and scrubbed frantically at the thick, dark lines.

The man on the radio _moaned._

Carlos twitched at the low, deep groan echoing from the car speakers and nearly jumped out of his skin at the sharp rap of knuckles on his window. When he turned to look, his heart stopped for the second time in less than a minute when he met the suspicious eyes of a burly man in a short cape, the bandolier of a guerilla fighter, and a black leather balaclava. Briefly he considered tromping on the gas and speeding the hell out of there, but the masked man had what looked like an automatic rifle slung over one shoulder. Wondering how on earth an armed thug in a leather mask had snuck up on him in the middle of nowhere--and was that a bright blue police cruiser idling behind him?--he rolled down the window instead.

"Excuse me," the man in the mask said brusquely. "Are you all right? Are you...lost?"

Five minutes ago, he would have been able to answer both of those questions, but now Carlos could only drop his hand and stare helplessly back, wondering where to even begin.

He wasn't expecting the man's eyes to flick to his forehead and freeze there, widening in solemn surprise. A hint of a smile twitched one corner of the thug's mouth, his wary tension softening abruptly. "Oh," the masked man said, resting his hand on the car door to lean down more casually, "sorry about that. I expect you're heading for Night Vale."

"Uh...yes, sir," Carlos replied, deciding to go ahead and pretend a patrol car meant police, no matter how they were dressed.

"Everything all right? I thought you might have run into some trouble when I saw you just sitting here."

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how _long_ he'd been sitting there, but...no. He could find out more once he reached the lab. "I'm fine, thanks. There wasn't any traffic, so I thought I'd take a moment to get the radio to tune in."

 _"L-listeners,"_ the DJ was gasping brokenly, and Carlos nearly busted his knuckles reaching to turn the radio off, his face heating uncontrollably.

The masked officer chuckled knowingly as he straightened, stepping away from the car. "Uh-huh. Well, drive safe. And try not to break any speed limits getting into town."

"Ah...of course," Carlos said with a strained grin. "Thanks for your concern."

He didn't quite hear the reply. It sounded like _'glad you finally made it,'_ which wasn't exactly reassuring. Had he been delayed long enough that one of the other scientists had filed a missing persons report on him? He supposed he'd know soon enough.

As he drove, he kept glancing up at the mirror, which he left angled just as it was. He told himself it was his imagination that the tattoo seemed to be looking back, though the horror that made his stomach roil was very real. Someone had somehow taken his own familiar skin and left their mark on it without his knowledge or consent, and if he thought too hard about that, he might just break down for real. What on earth had _happened,_ and why couldn't he remember any of it?

His hands didn't quite stop shaking until he reached the lab, but their sudden steadiness was mostly due to shock, an atypical response he was typically grateful for.

He wasn't the only one just pulling up, but like him, the others weren't traveling light. He could see mounds of luggage and indifferently-taped cardboard boxes stacked up to dangerous heights in several backseats, like they'd only just pulled off the highway themselves. But surely that was impossible, because that would mean he was right on time.

***

"No, it's definitely June fifteenth," Borowicz said as she peered at his forehead through a jeweler's loupe. Teasdale had already disappeared into the basement with a few skin cell scrapings, guiltily pleased to have something to test the new equipment on already. "I stopped in another town for breakfast on the way here and had a look at the paper."

"CNN," Morris agreed, aiming a camera his way, "but otherwise, same story. I don't think you've lost any time, boss, because if you have then we all have, only you're the only one showing any symptoms."

"Well, it can't have just happened all at once," Carlos protested, though he was increasingly uncertain of that. They were here to study impossible things, after all. "It's...."

"It may not actually be permanent," Borowicz said evenly, ignoring the fact that repeated scrubbings with all manner of soaps and chemicals had failed to lighten the black lines etched into his brow one jot. "I'm not exactly an expert in tattoos, but I'm not seeing the sort of swelling or irritation I'd expect if you'd recently been pricked a few hundred times with a sharp needle. So either you've had this for a long time and only just now noticed it--"

"Not likely," Carlos grumbled.

"--or it's not a tattoo," Borowicz continued, unperturbed. "I suppose we'll have to wait for Teasdale to run the sample to see if he turns up any ink, but...."

Carlos sighed, shifting awkwardly on the tall stool they'd set up in the break room to make up for his being their very first test subject. "Right. Thanks."

Borowicz touched his arm with a sympathetic smile. He didn't mean to be so surly; he just hadn't been expecting... _stigmata,_ or whatever this was, the minute he entered city limits.

"Okay, boss," Morris called, distracting him from his funk, "say 'cheese!'"

Reilly strode in just as Morris was finishing the mug shots, a small paper bag in hand. "I got a few different skin tones," she announced with a critical frown, "but I'm not promising a match."

"Uh...what?" If they'd taken the Desert Bluffs offer, he'd have been worried; as it was, he was just confused.

"Concealer," Reilly explained with a wry smirk, "in case you wanted to go that route. We do still have that town meeting in an hour, right?"

Damn. He'd completely forgotten about that.

"Um," he began hopefully, suspecting that there was a right way and a wrong way to apply whatever Reilly had brought him and that he was not wise enough in the ways of the Force to tell the difference.

Reilly's smirk stretched into a smug grin.

***

The problem was that the concealer itched. _Burned,_ like a finger poking into one of his real eyes. He'd had to grip his steering wheel white-knuckled on his way to City Hall to keep from scraping the thin coat of makeup off with his fingernails, and he knew he was doing a poor job of hiding the fact. Lindquist, who'd carpooled with him, kept shooting him worried looks. It was a relief to pull in at last and escape the claustrophobic confines of his car; without a half-ton of eco-friendly, fuel-efficient aluminum and steel under him, he was probably a danger only to himself, not others.

Telling himself that he only had to get through his speech and the meet-and-greet after--an hour, tops; he could last an hour--he kept his hands fisted grimly at his sides as one of the mayor's staff showed them to the rapidly-filling meeting room. Smiling as naturally as he could to anyone who looked his way, he gratefully left most of the talking to Lindquist. "Tell me if I'm about to frighten any children," he muttered through the side of his clenched teeth as Morris joined them, clearly preparing to run interference if Carlos cracked.

"You're doing fine," Morris assured him, worry turning his eyes a shade of soulful rarely reached by anything not of the beagle persuasion. "Also, there are absolutely no children present, so you're probably in the clear."

Laughter distracted him from the maddening discomfort, let him take a deep, steadying breath. He ignored the small knot of leather-hooded spectators in the back of the room, nudging each other and murmuring quietly while staring at him with puzzled...eyes? Mouths? It should have been hard to tell from under the balaclavas, but something about them just screamed of anxious frowns.

He was just about to begin the meeting, waiting for a few late arrivals to settle, when he noticed the man in the front row. Neither tall nor short, thin nor fat, he had fairish hair that might have been blond or brown depending on the light and the face of a Norman Rockwell painting: wholesome, clean-cut and utterly ordinary. Only his eyes were unusual, both the pair that were fixed on him in spellbound bemusement, startlingly pale, and the single one inked into his forehead, an exact replica of Carlos' own mark.

"Steady, there, boss," Morris murmured quietly at his back. Apparently he'd spotted the stranger as well, or possibly it was Carlos' aborted move to rush the man and demand answers that Morris had noticed.

Taking a deep breath, hands clenching tightly on the edges of the podium, Carlos forced himself to look, only look at the tattooed man and deflated at what he saw. Though he was being stared at in a kind of wonder, there was no sign that the stranger had any idea what Carlos was hiding: no confusion, no anger, no mockery, any of which Carlos would have expected of someone who'd drug a perfect stranger and mark him unawares. Maybe this was just another victim. Either way, interrogating the man would have to wait.

"Hello," he said into the microphone, eyes he'd wrenched away jerking back at a dreamy sigh from the man in the audience. The man was...smiling--was that a smile?--the way most people did when listening to virtuoso musical performances, or after being handed a plate of something very decadent and very chocolate. "I'd like to thank you all for coming, and for welcoming us to Night Vale."

He'd given his fair share of press conferences, mainly when his superiors needed someone photogenic to soften the blow, but he'd never had to get up in front of half a town when all he wanted was to peel his own skin off until it _stopped itching._ Unlikely as it seemed, he made a note to ask his fellow unfortunate whether he suffered from the same allergy to cosmetics, if that was why he hadn't covered up his own mark.

He didn't doubt it would be an awkward conversation either way; the looks the man were giving him were frankly...overwhelming.

He was aware that his face made some people behave in ridiculous ways, that while running had an undeniably positive effect on focused thought, perhaps he could stand to exercise a little less. He was still infuriated by the assumption that he should use those things as an asset superior to his intellect. He'd seen every variation on the sidelong glance before he'd reached his mid-twenties, but never before had anyone stared at him with such blatant worship, open and honest and not giving a damn for who saw. That it was another man made it all the more astounding; it was simultaneously disturbing and the most courageous thing he'd ever seen.

He nearly lost the thread of his speech, glanced down at his notes to realize he'd made it halfway through already without remembering a single word, and tried to take that as a good sign. Halfway through was that much closer to blessed relief.

"As scientists," he continued in measured tones, resisting the urge to hurry through the rest, "we're always searching for new puzzles and new challenges, for new ways to turn our knowledge and talents towards the betterment of our fellows. With this in mind, I believe I can confidently state that Night Vale is the most scientifically interesting community in the US, and that we're all very grateful to be here."

Carlos grinned a little then, reminded all over again of why he'd come in the first place. There was so much to learn, so many mysteries to delve into, countless miracles right at their fingertips if they could only make the stretch to understanding. He was still grinning when a soft gasp had him glancing at the man in the front row once more, startled to find him looking troubled, peering at Carlos with a faint flush, as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't.

Christ, maybe the guy was closeted after all. Or taken.

Carlos managed not to glance at the man even once after that as he finished his speech to polite applause. Fuck, but he hated his face.

A buffet table had been set up in the back, and Carlos headed in that general direction as he made his way through the crowd, shaking hands and trying his best to answer any questions put to him. Some were staggering in their strangeness, others in their normality...if the asker had been a particularly precocious three year-old.

"The moon?" Carlos echoed with a stilted smile, waiting to hear the punch line. The source of the question was a man who looked to be in his fifties, was possibly part of the mayor's staff, and he appeared to be in deadly earnest. "Well...it's a natural satellite thought to have been formed by a giant impact that blew off matter from the proto-Earth's crust--"

"It's _stolen_?" the man squeaked, appalled. "Excuse me--I have to go report this--"

On his right, Morris coughed delicately into his fist, but Carlos couldn't look. If he met any of his colleagues' eyes right now, he'd laugh until he couldn't stop, and that wasn't exactly the impression he wanted to make their first day in town.

And anyway, the man with the identical tattoo was finally edging closer.

Sighing, Carlos poured himself a paper cup of chilled water from a giant red Igloo that rattled with ice. He hadn't wanted to stand up in front of Night Vale looking like some sort of embarrassing New Age jerk trying too hard to fit in with the town's weirdness, but it didn't seem fair to ask the sort of questions he intended to without a show of good faith.

Dunking a paper napkin in his untouched drink, he scrubbed determinedly at the concealer that had probably eaten through the top layers of his epidermis, only to freeze at a familiar, breathless moan.

It was the man from the front row, the man from the _radio,_ and he was staring at Carlos with the sort of joyous relief most people reserved for religious experiences.

***

Cecil could hardly believe his eyes. He'd felt wretched when he'd found himself sighing over a handsome scientist--Carlos, his name was _Carlos_ \--on the very same day he'd finally felt the pull of his Sacrifice for the very first time. He'd wanted to escape back to the radio station the instant he'd realized what he was doing, and never mind that he'd only left in the first place because he'd had some mad notion of a chance meeting with Fate. Instead he'd stuck it out, determined to prove himself constant to a Sacrifice he'd never met, even going so far as to approach the beautiful, brilliant scientist with the chiseled jaw and the hands of an artist and _no, no, no,_ he would be _unmoved._

And then he could only watch, guilt and shame burning away in an instant, as his perfect vision reached up and scrubbed away the makeup that was-- _touching, oh gods, he was touching their name, their mark, right there where everyone could see and_ hear _and oh_ \--

Carlos was staring at him in shock, as if he had no clear idea what he'd just done, but Cecil couldn't bring himself to care. After so very many years, they'd finally found each other.

"It's you," he breathed reverently. "My Sacrifice."

His first indication that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong was the way Carlos' baffled but friendly expression closed off like the lead-lined door to Radon Canyon had slammed shut between them. In the next instant, all Cecil could see was scientists, the wrong ones, Carlos' team surrounding him in a living wall. "Get him out of here," the oldest said, and Cecil opened his mouth to protest as a fierce-eyed woman took Carlos by the arm and started moving him politely but firmly towards the door.

What stopped him was the way they were looking at him, all of them, as if he was a _danger._ As if they were guarding Carlos against him.

"I...what's going on?" he asked the man who'd stayed behind. Cecil thought his name might be Morris; he hadn't paid as much attention as he should have when Carlos was introducing his team. "What...did I say something...?"

Breathing in slowly through his nose, Morris sighed it out harshly, visibly forcing himself to relax. "Excuse me," he said with a strange, determined politeness. "I was wondering if you knew anything about the mark that appeared on Carlos' forehead earlier today."

"Appeared?" Cecil echoed, shaking his head helplessly. Hadn't Carlos always had it? No, wait--he'd heard of that before, when a Fighter or a Sacrifice grew up completely unaware of what they were, too far away to sense their other half. If Carlos hadn't known, the way his colleagues clearly didn't know, then--oh, shivering ancestors, he'd gone about this all wrong, hadn't he?

"Listen," Morris said patiently, "I'm sure that being a sacrifice is a great honor and all, but as scientists we're required to keep an objective distance, so I'm afraid he'll have to decline. He may have some questions for you, however--which one of us will be glad to pass along--if you wouldn't mind answering them."

"He can ask me anything he likes," Cecil promised, his voice breathy with horror. He spoke with so few outsiders, he forgot sometimes how tone-deaf they all were when they arrived, and there hadn't been a hint of a proper noun in Morris' disapproval-laden use of 'sacrifice.' "I--I didn't mean what you think I did. Honest."

"Of course not," Morris said with a quick, insincere smile. "Well, I'd better be getting back to the others. Thank you for your time, Mister...?"

"Palmer," he choked out, weakly returning the handshake Morris offered. "Cecil Palmer. I'm...I'm on the radio," he blurted, not certain what he was trying to prove: that he was who he said he was, that he could be trusted, where he could be found any time of the day, anytime at all, if his Sacrifice wanted. Maybe Carlos would even tune in.

Maybe he had some way of mending things after all.

***

He was sitting on a stool in the break room again, surrounded once more by a circle of worried scientists, but this time they were all struck dumb. Staring, Carlos included, at the portable radio Morris had picked up on his way back to the lab.

 _"Carlos told us that we are_ by far _the most scientifically interesting community in the US_ , _"_ Cecil was telling his listening audience, _"and he had come to study just what is going on around here. He grinned, and everything about him was_ perfect."

Oh, God.

 _"And I fell in love_ instantly."

Groaning out loud, Carlos dropped his head onto the table and banged it a few times for good measure. Someone patted his back as he choked off a hysterical giggle, but it didn't really help. This wasn't his first stalker, but it was definitely the first time he had to worry about altars as well as knives. Maybe he ought to add weight training to his running regimen. Or maybe kickboxing. Cage fighting? He just didn't know.

He did know that he'd be damned if he hid in his lab for the next few years. He'd been through with that since his freshman year of high school.

"I'm going over there," he said to the table.

"Uh, boss--"

"Tonight," he added firmly, sitting up and pulling his shoulders straight. If this Cecil character thought he could intimidate Carlos with an offhand threat and some creepy gushing over the radio, he was about to learn differently.

And Carlos was just going to ignore the tiny, leaden ball of disappointment lodged in his gut that Cecil had turned out to be some kind of a nutcase. While his obvious infatuation had been a little embarrassing, Carlos had been stupidly charmed by the guts it took to put it all out there like that.

Now he just felt stupid.

***

"Stupid," Cecil moaned to himself, banging his head on the desk, the dulcet strains of the Night Vale Hornet Orchestra warming up for their first movement rising tinnily from the headphones still slung around his neck. At least he was finally off the air for the night; finishing out his last ten minutes had been sheer torture.

He'd come on too strong again, if that was even possible given how inanely, idiotically tongue-tied he'd been from the moment Carlos walked through the door. Alone, when Cecil would cheerfully have welcomed any amount of chaperoning if it meant he could spend even five minutes in his Sacrifice's company. But he must have moved too fast, said or done something worrisome, because Carlos hadn't stayed to hear even the beginning of Cecil's explanation; he'd been far too quick to drop Cecil's eyes, burying himself in that box he'd been carrying, and the next thing Cecil knew, Carlos was on his way to the door, telling them all to evacuate.

"I am such an idiot," he groaned and then gasped.

Somewhere very close, maybe as close as the parking lot right now, Carlos was touching the mark of their name again, light and curious this time. Cecil shivered, feeling that delicate examination right down to his soul, his own hand creeping up as he gingerly lifted his head. His fingers halted a bare half-inch from his brow, so close he could feel their heat, but he mastered himself with a strangled whine of protest. Before he'd held back because he'd thought his Sacrifice was teasing him, letting him know they were nearly together at last. Now, with the realization that Carlos didn't know _anything,_ he just...couldn't. It wouldn't be fair or right.

But gods, he hoped he got another chance to speak with Carlos soon, because he didn't know how many more of those innocent explorations he could take before he simply went insane.

***

It didn't take Carlos long to give up on trying to hide the mark on his brow. Hypoallergenic, _allergenic,_ organic--every brand of cosmetic he tried made his flesh burn and ache, though the symptoms vanished the instant he washed his face. Inexplicably it was only where his not-tattoo sat that was affected; multiple patch tests in multiple locations produced no discomfort whatsoever. He'd briefly considered wearing a hat, but it was already too hot for his _hair,_ and a hat would just be sad. Everyone already knew he had the mark. The strange thing was that no one seemed to think him any less professional for it, when anyone knew that hand and facial tattoos were tantamount to declaring an intention to never collect a meaningful paycheck for the rest of one's life.

He got used to a second type of discomfort as well, one that only showed up around certain people: a sub-audible whine he felt more than heard as an eye-watering prickle between the back of his jaw and his ears. It wouldn't have been quite so distracting, except that it occurred in conjunction with a little over a quarter of Night Vale's population, and though it usually faded fast, the initial thirty seconds were enough to put him entirely on edge.

The one person around whom it never faded was Steve Carlsburg.

He almost ran into the man in the coffee and juice aisle of the Ralph's, their carts nearly crashing together as Carlos made a play for the last of the Sumatran. Jerking his eyes up, Carlos met Carlsburg's narrowed gaze and instantly fell into a more balanced, ready stance; evidently his sparring sessions with Reilly were paying off.

Casually plucking a bag of Morning Roast off the shelf, Carlsburg looked him over with a slowly widening smirk. "It's true," he said, "isn't it?"

"What's that?" Carlos said flatly, suspecting he already knew. It was only the same thing _everyone_ talked about when they thought he couldn't hear.

"You're not giving Cecil the time of day, are you?" It wasn't a question, and Steve's bark of gleeful laughter wasn't meant to be inclusive. "His own Sacrifice!"

Carlos frowned. There was that word again, only over the last few months, it had started to sound...different. Weightier. He had to wonder if he was missing something; at the very least, the rest of the town didn't treat him like a walking dead man...or at least, not for that reason more than any other.

Carlsburg's delighted laughter faded to nothing after a moment, dying uneasily as Carlos merely stared. Scowling, Steve searched Carlos' face, and whatever he saw made him grimace. "Fuck," he muttered. "You really don't know anything, do you?"

Pride stung, Carlos drew breath to dispute that but bit back his protest when he realized the skull-needling whine he usually felt around Carlsburg was ebbing to almost ignorable levels. He'd have to test that. Later. For now he ground out, "Enlighten me."

Eyeing him for a long moment, Steve finally shook his head. "You should talk to Cecil," he replied grudgingly.

"I'm asking you," Carlos insisted, never one to turn loose of an answer when it was dangling right in front of him.

"Not my place," Carlsburg said shortly, nostrils flaring as his mouth tightened. "Believe me, I don't like that bastard any more than he likes me, but even I'm not that much of a jerk. Just...talk to him. He'll tell you anything you want to know."

He stalked away before Carlos could stop him, shoving his cart in front of him like a battering ram.

Staring after him, Carlos swallowed down his frustration as best he could. Apparently there was more to this 'sacrifice' business than he'd first realized, but he wasn't sure he was ready to confront Cecil about it. What had seemed like admirable courage at first had been clearly revealed as a dangerous obsession; even if the sacrifice remark turned out to be a typical Night Vale misunderstanding, he wouldn't go so far as to say Cecil was safe. He wasn't sure he even trusted Cecil to tell him anything but what he wanted to hear.

Maybe he could start small, he mused reluctantly. He could call in the next news bulletin to the station himself, see how Cecil reacted. It was a ridiculous thought--encouraging a stalker was like feeding a bear--but if it meant getting answers....

He'd think about it. Long and hard. But he already knew he'd be making that call.

***

It had taken every bit of self-control that Cecil possessed not to charge up and declare on that...that miserable _Steve Carlsburg,_ right there in the middle of the Ralphs. Steve had no business talking to Carlos in the first place, much less teasing Carlos for something he couldn't help. It wasn't Carlos' fault he hadn't grown up around fighting pairs or that his Fighter was so hopeless at dealing with people. Radio, now--radio Cecil was good at. People...not always.

He at least knew enough to wait until Steve was out of Carlos' sight before storming up with murder in his eyes.

Steve felt him coming, of course. Even when more than a quarter of their fellow shoppers were Fighters or Sacrifices, the violence bubbling just underneath their every interaction meant the warning prickle between them never eased, strong enough to make Cecil's back teeth ache. Or maybe that was from the clenching of his jaw.

" _Carlsburg,_ " he growled as Steve turned to face him, sneer already in place.

"Why, _Cecil._ Fancy meeting you here. Shopping with your Sacrifice? Oh, wait," Steve said with a sweet little smile. "I forgot. He doesn't want anything to do with you, does he?"

That hurt, enough to goad him into answering on Steve's own level. "It's amazing what we have in common," he snapped, revolted at himself but shamefully pleased to see Steve go pale.

"At least mine was _taken,_ " Steve hissed in a furious undertone, shaking with rage, "by those bastards in the Secret Police--"

" _Taken_?" Cecil echoed incredulously, keeping his own voice hushed mostly out of habit. It didn't matter to _him_ that Steve was embarrassing himself pitifully, but the Sheriff's Secret Police weren't a fit subject for a public shouting match. "She sent in the application herself! I hear she's doing quite well, in fact--head of the neighborhood watch division, isn't she? You must be so proud."

" _That isn't her,_ " Steve snarled, the two of them glaring at each other from just inches away as the tissues and detergent aisle rapidly emptied around them. They were probably about to get kicked out of the Ralphs yet again, but that knowledge took a backseat to curling his lip at Steve's willful blindness.

"Of course it is," he scoffed. "You just don't want it to be."

"Oh, _please._ They can turn anyone--"

Cecil had had enough. " _They didn't have to,_ " he ground out coldly. "Your Sacrifice believes in Night Vale. She believes in the Sheriff's Secret Police. She believes she's doing a good thing for our community, in spite of the fact that her own Fighter has cast her off for feeling that way. You're the only one who's changed; she's the same person she's always been."

"You don't know that!"

" _Seeker!_ " Cecil barked as quietly as he could stand to, nearly smacking Steve as he jerked his hand up to point imperiously at his brow, the mark of his name. "I'd see it, you idiot! How many times do I have to _tell_ you?"

He felt certain Steve would declare on him then and there and prayed belatedly that Carlos wouldn't be dragged into the fight unawares. He was used to battling Steve alone, Fighter to Fighter, but Carlos was so close, and Steve wasn't thinking clearly, and it was far too late to drag the idiot somewhere far, far away from Cecil's unwitting Sacrifice.

He was shocked when Steve mastered himself, settling for a grumbled, "Bullshit" and a bitter sneer though he was breathing heavily, hands clenched on the bar of his shopping cart.

Cecil wanted to roll his eyes or deliver an open-palmed slap to the back of Steve's head, neither of which he would've hesitated to do fifteen years ago. Now he mostly felt tired. Ellie had been his friend too, was still his friend; she always assigned him the rookies, who didn't know any better than to let him get away with murder.

"You can't turn a Sacrifice into someone they're not," Cecil said heavily, trying not to think of the man only a few aisles away lest Carlos feel it through the bond of their name. It was the Sacrifice who was supposed to call the Fighter anyway--that was just good manners--and he'd never felt that, that overwhelming need for his presence. Not once.

"Maybe I thought we'd change together," Steve muttered, half to himself, staring a hole in Cecil's left shoulder.

He'd avoided looking _into_ Steve since the last real fight, the one that had ended with Ellie storming out of the apartment she'd shared with Steve and sending a couple of disapproving deputies to pick up her things. He'd been appalled at what he'd seen in his best and oldest friend when he'd begged an explanation, but he hadn't had a Sacrifice of his own then, hadn't realized just how strong the fear of losing everything to something as fickle as chance could be.

"She'd rather die than leave Night Vale," Cecil warned without malice, keeping his voice barely audible and trying to move his lips as little as possible. They could still mindscan him, but they probably wouldn't bother. Being half of Seeker meant he was hell on the equipment; the effect was only meant to be one-way.

Shaking his head, Steve pushed past Cecil with a weary snort. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of," he said over his shoulder without looking back.

Cecil still wanted to toss him through the Tide display, with or without a spell, but for the first time in a decade and a half, he had to admit he _understood_ him.

***

"So," Reilly said as she aimed a roundhouse kick at his head, "I hear you've been talking to the radio guy."

Ducking fast, Carlos threw a punch at her unprotected side, but she was already gone, dancing out of the way with a faintly mocking--and archly expectant--grin.

"It's the fastest way to get the word out when we need to warn the town," Carlos defended, swiping a bare forearm quickly across his damp hairline, avoiding the mark on his brow out of habit. The practice mat in the back room they'd converted as a makeshift gym squeaked under his bare feet as he dodged a knee heading for his kidneys. He'd forgotten only _once_ that most women made up in leg strength what they lacked in upper body strength, and Reilly lacked neither; one lesson had been enough. "And he's...not as bad if you keep him focused on the job?"

He was aware that he should not have inflected that as a question. He didn't need Reilly's wry eyebrow-twitch to tell him that. Because short of buying a Designated Victim shirt--available at the Hot Topic in nearby Desert Bluffs--he really couldn't have made it any plainer that he was being a complete failure at looking after his own safety.

Brushing up on his self-defense in thrice-weekly sessions with Reilly aside, of course.

"Is this Stockholm Syndrome?" Reilly asked pointedly. "Because we could stage an intervention if that needs to be a thing."

"I think you need a permit for that," Carlos grumbled, feeling his face heat from more than exertion. "And it's not...like that. I mean, don't get me wrong," he said quickly, stepping into Reilly's next jab to grab her wrist, feeling justifiably proud when he managed to flip her to the mat without getting _his_ arm wrenched up around his ears for his trouble. "The radio thing is still creepy as--hell!" he yelped as Reilly swept his feet out from under him. Winded, he lay where he landed, spread-eagled and heaving for breath as Reilly picked herself up lightly and waited for him to recover. "It's just," he managed between gasps, "he's more...geek-creepy than...horrifying ex-boyfriend-creepy."

"I've had some pretty horrifying geeky ex-boyfriends," Reilly informed him dryly, fists planted on her hips. He got the feeling she knew what he meant, though. Cecil was weird in that way people got when they either grew up far too alone or when all their friends were as poorly-socialized as they were. It was like Cecil had never encountered the concept of "too much" or had anyone call a time out on his exuberance, had no idea what a brain-mouth filter even was. It was a trait Carlos both recognized and sympathized with, knowing from personal experience that the filter was desperately necessary when the brain in question wasn't wired like the norm. The truth was, if he'd met Cecil anywhere else, under any other circumstances, he would have found Cecil's odd worldview quirky but endearing.

But this was Night Vale, and first impressions were strong; instead of falling like a ton of bricks, there was still that nagging suspicion that he'd wake in a bloodstone circle instead of his own bed if he ever let his guard down for long.

"Hey, boss," Morris called, poking his head in as he knocked casually on the door frame. "You two about done? We were about to set up the tanks for the, uh...wheat-snakes," he said with a pained grimace, "and we could really use a hand."

The other three had piled up at Morris' back while he was talking, peering in as well and grinning to find Carlos on the floor...again. "You could get in on this as well, you know," he huffed as he sat up, accepting the hand Reilly offered to pull him to his feet.

"Uh...that librarian repellant I cooked up repels pretty much everything," Teasdale offered apologetically, holding up a spray canister that had the others sidling cautiously away from him.

Morris shrugged, pulling aside his lab coat to reveal a shoulder holster. "They were handing these things out like candy, so I figured...when in Rome...."

Borowicz slid a few inches of _something_ out of her breast pocket with a smile. "I won a blow gun off your deputy at one of the weekly poker games. Mine's teaching me to use it."

Which just left Lindquist...who, God help them, was grinning hugely. "Did you know you can buy refined plutonium at the hardware store?"

" _What_?" Morris blurted.

"No!" Reilly accused, stalking over to thump Lindquist in the shoulder. She must have pulled the punch; Lindquist yelped, but he laughed.

"Uh, guys? Wheat-snakes?" Carlos reminded before a mass exodus to the hardware store could begin. He wasn't quite sure he approved of this bunch playing around with radioactive materials, but to be honest, they could do that just opening their refrigerators in the morning. At least Lindquist's little slip had distracted Reilly from Carlos' idiocy.

He'd like to say he wasn't encouraging Cecil's behavior, though initiating contact himself when he ran into the man around town definitely counted. It didn't matter how often he insisted he wasn't stopping Cecil for personal reasons. Cecil heard exactly what he wanted to hear, and nothing Carlos said or did could dissuade the man from acting like Carlos was the love of his life. It made him feel wretchedly guilty and more than a little terrified, but more than anything it was just...depressing.

It'd be nice to believe he could be the love of _somebody's_ life, but the odds weren't in his favor.

***

It was funny, Carlos mused as he paced his living room, running a frustrated hand through his hair. He'd told himself he wouldn't call Cecil again, that once was probably too often, though getting the word out about the time distortion effect _had_ been important. Important enough that he was taking a personal day today, because he just _knew_ Cecil was going to mention the phone call on the air, and Carlos frankly didn't want to deal with the friendly concern of his fellow scientists once they heard about it.

There was absolutely no reason he should want to call Cecil again just because he'd dismantled his twenty-first clock and found another teratoma in place of gears. No reason at all.

Maybe it _was_ Stockholm Syndrome.

"Fuck it," he muttered, pulling out his phone and dialing the number he'd only used once before but had added to his contacts list without thinking twice.

"Cecil," he said brusquely as he went to voice mail, trying to keep things as impersonal as he could. "Sorry to bother you. I need you to get the word out that clocks in Night Vale are not real. I have not found a single real clock. I have disassembled several watches and clocks this week and all of them are hollow inside. No gears, no crystal, no battery or power source--some of them actually contain a gelatinous grey lump that seems to be growing hair, and uh, teeth." He was starting to sound shaky even to himself at the reminder, so he stiffened his spine, forced himself to focus on the solution rather than dwelling needlessly on how very, very unsightly the problem was. "I need to know if all clocks are this way, Cecil, this is ver--"

He glanced at the front door, some half-formed notion running through his head of going down to the station and asking to disassemble the clock in the sound booth, but a shadow moving along the blinds distracted him. He might have dismissed it as the deputy assigned to watch his house returning from break, but by their own lights, the Sheriff's Secret Police were professionals. No deputy would have cast such an obvious shadow, one that stretched and jittered along the slats of his closed blinds in a way too... _piecemeal_ to be quite human. It made his throat close for reasons he couldn't quite explain, his voice strangled to a whisper as he abruptly remembered the phone pressed to his ear.

"There's something at my door, Cecil," he breathed, standing frozen in the middle of his living room. "I--" He swallowed, hard. He didn't know why. "I need to go, okay? I'll call you back in--well, I don't know."

As he approached the windows, he felt very much like there ought to be someone, somewhere, on other side of a television screen screaming at him to _run, you idiot, don't do it._ Come to think of it, they were probably with the Secret Police.

Edging cautiously closer, he put his shoulder to the wall and stood at an angle, hoping both for a clear view of the door and to remain hidden from whoever or whatever was outside. The hand that wasn't clutched white-knuckle around his phone trembled slightly as he gingerly scissored the slats of his blinds apart, first a fraction and then a finger-width. Nothing horrifying slammed up against the glass and the weather outside remained as clear and cloudless as it had been all day, but-- 

There was someone standing at his door.

He scrabbled at his phone, all but choking on creeping unease, and realized only as he was being shunted to voice mail that part of his inexplicable horror was wrapped up in the needling ache spreading slowly through his skull. It was the same feeling he got from Old Woman Josie, the mayor, Steve Carlsburg.

The phone beeped at him, and he let out a deep, shuddering breath, willing himself calm.

"There's a man in a jacket holding a leather suitcase outside my door, Cecil," he whispered. "He's not knocking, he's just standing in front of my door." There was no reason for his hands to be shaking, his head to be _pounding_ just because _someone was there._ The fear itself made no sense at all. "I can't make out his face. I'm peering through a crack in the living room blinds, I--oh no, he saw me!"

He wasn't sure how he knew when he still couldn't make out the stranger's face, only that it was turned his way. Was the door locked? He suddenly didn't know, and as he backed clumsily away from the window, taking two tries to pocket his phone, it suddenly seemed imperative that he be certain. Rushing over with his heart in his mouth, he first unhooked the chain and then fumbled the deadbolt, and-- _Jesus Fuck, why was he opening the door?_

The man in the tan jacket stood perfectly calm as Carlos nearly tripped over himself backing deeper into the living room, running into the back of the couch before he stopped. Then the man stepped inside, closed the door quietly behind him, and threw the deadbolt.

No. _Fuck_ no.

"Who...are you?" Carlos forced himself to ask, ignoring the shaking of his voice. His eyes felt strange, staring wide as if searching for every scrap of light in a darkened room, but it was only the man's face he couldn't see. It was like a temporary case of agnosia, his brain scrambling for a single point of familiarity and panicking all over itself with its inability to categorize what his eyes reported.

He had a strong impression of a smile of surprised respect, an arched brow. "You can still ask questions?"

"Plenty," Carlos shot back, though the quiver in his voice threatened to make him a liar. "What are you doing in my house, and what do you want?"

"You're the Sacrifice," the man drawled slowly. "I wanted to see if you could fight."

"Fight _what_?" Had this bastard done something to him? An odorless gas, maybe--he'd have to ask Teasdale, find out if his chemist had any contacts with the military, because something like this would definitely be black ops.

The man in the tan jacket came closer, leather briefcase still swinging from one hand.

"You'd like to call him," he said softly, "wouldn't you?"

Carlos blinked, perplexed. "Cecil?" he demanded, realizing too late he'd given too much away by jumping to that automatic conclusion. "Is this about Cecil?"

Another step closer. Another. His knees felt like jelly, his guts threatening to turn to water.

"It'd be so easy. You know he'd come running. All you have to do is call."

Hand diving into his pocket, he yanked his phone out and then threw it across the room without thinking twice. He didn't hear it land, so it must have hit the overstuffed chair that always looked lived-in though he never sat there himself.

He wasn't expecting the man to laugh. "Not like that." A hand he _could_ see, all too clearly, rose up with two fingers lifted, like the most inappropriately-timed Boy Scout salute ever. "With this," the man said, not quite touching the mark on Carlos' brow but so close he could feel the infernal heat the man radiated.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Carlos insisted, voice cracking with the strain of speaking at all. The terror that had all but overcome him--he knew for certain now that it wasn't natural, and with everything he had, he tried to dig in.

"You know enough. Call."

"Fuck you," he rasped, hands clenching on the back of the couch to hold himself upright, to give him _leverage._

" _Call._ "

Feeling as graceful as a three-legged dog, he leaned back on his arms and brought his knees up sharply, driving both feet into the stranger's stomach as he punched his legs out straight. The man practically flew backwards, hitting the wall with a grunt and dropping his briefcase, but that was it; that was all Carlos had. He could only stare numbly as the case cracked open, a swarm of flies boiling out, hundreds collecting on the man's unknowable face and arranging themselves in the topography of a delighted grin.

"That," the man said through a mouthful of flies as he pushed himself away from the wall, "was impressive. Do that again when it matters, and maybe you'll both live."

Carlos had no idea what the man was babbling about and could barely bring himself to care. The terror effect the intruder had brought with him was fading rapidly, leaving him gasping and weak with relief. "What...?" he managed, struggling doggedly to collect his thoughts. None of this made sense. And what did this stranger want with Cecil?

"Never you mind. But don't worry; I won't leave you with more questions than you had."

Somehow he didn't like the sound of that.

" _Erase,_ " said the man in the tan jacket with the leather briefcase, and instantly Carlos felt something in his mind begin to twist.

No, no, _no,_ he howled silently, clutching his head as he tried to keep hold of whatever scraps of himself he could manage. He had to remember, _had_ to, because the bastard was already leaving, deadbolt unlatched, door open, door shut, door--there had been someone at the door. He'd been making a call.

 _Don't,_ he told himself fiercely even as he staggered over to retrieve his phone, accepting it blindly when it was placed in his groping hand by an invisible presence. _Don't call. Don't ever call._ He was already pulling up his contacts, but somehow that didn't bother him in the slightest.

_Don't ever call anyone into danger with you._

Slumping bonelessly onto the couch, he sighed with relief as the phone began to ring on the other end.

Of course. That was it. How could he ever have forgotten?

***

The Apache Tracker stared at the Desert Flower Arcade Bowling Alley and Fun Complex and shook his head. It made his ridiculous plastic headdress rustle like a sharp breeze tearing through the floral section at a Michael's, so he did it again; two latecomers to Jeremy Godfrey's birthday party saw him and glared, hurrying past. Ordinarily it would have been hard to hide a smirk, but today he was merely worried.

He and his ally, the man of flies, had planned against this day. They had tested. They had sifted through sand and found solid bedrock--which was nice until bedrock decided it had an axe to grind over a suicidally stoic ideal it should never have gotten stuck in its head in the first place. Bedrock was a bitch that way.

The Apache Tracker sighed. He knew what he'd taken on in becoming the most hated man in town, but when it came to sacrifices, Night Vale dealt only in absolutes. Most hated. Most loved. Night Vale wasn't picky. It was only slightly ironic--and very, very worrisome--that the man who'd had a hand in creating the only two acceptable sacrifices for this century might lose his _own_ Sacrifice because of what they'd done.

Night Vale needed its Voice, and its Voice would be useless without the other half of its soul.

He shook his head again.

He didn't mind dying so much, but dying for nothing really chapped his hide.

***

Cecil couldn't look. Not at the note the intern had handed him, not across the darkening miles to the place where Carlos lay. He'd closed his eyes, all of them, and it came to him with a choking sob that his last sight of his Sacrifice would be of Carlos falling to his knees, bloody and pale, lips parting on nothing but mute surprise. Not Cecil's name. Never his name.

Even at the end, his Sacrifice had preferred to die alone.

He'd struck out at the soundboard at random as he bolted from his chair, not caring which prerecorded message he brought up. That it was all to do with _science_ had him strangling a hysterical laugh as he leaned on the sink in the station bathroom, Khoshekh purring loud and anxious on his right. The too-cheerful voice echoing through the speakers over the mirror was saying something about a house, a house that didn't exist, and that reminded Cecil of Carlos too.

Carlos who hadn't wanted him, who hadn't called.

He didn't remember ending up on the floor, but he put his back to the nearest wall and buried his face in his knees, folding his arms over his head.

Steve had been right. He should have tried to drive Carlos away, not supported him like a fool. At least then Carlos would be safe. Alive. Somewhere. Cecil had lived without a Sacrifice before.

He didn't know how he was meant to do it again.

***

Through the whole ridiculous ordeal of being fired on by tiny rocket launchers and miniature tanks that drove him to his knees, Carlos never lost consciousness, not entirely, and that was somehow the worst of it. His mind just wouldn't turn him loose, even when things got muddy and hazy and surprisingly cold. _Rapid blood loss will do that,_ some part of his mind helpfully informed him, presumably the part that wasn't having quiet hysterics over the painful faltering of his heart's normal rhythm.

And then there was motion, a voice his brain flatly refused to parse into words, and the garish nightmare of what would have been his very last choice for the last thing his eyes would ever see: the plastic monstrosity of the Apache Tracker's feathered headdress.

 _What an asshole,_ he thought fuzzily as he was heaved up and slung around, hefted like an oversized sack of potatoes over the lip of the hole he'd so pompously climbed down. Hands latched hold of him instantly to drag him to safety, Teddy Williams leaning over him with a face gone nearly transparent with fear. " _Replenish!_ " Teddy was yelling, like he thought he was in a Harry Potter movie, "oh, fuck-- _Suture,_ damn it!" and oh, interesting. Teddy made his head buzz just like Steve Carlsburg did once he started throwing around spells. He wondered where Teddy kept his wand.

He hallucinated everything that followed, of course. He'd lost a lot of blood. It wasn't quite accurate to say that Carlos _woke_ to a feeling of utter devastation reaching into his chest and trying to drag his heart free without peeling back his ribs first. It was only his clarity that returned in a rush, leaving him to blink up at Teddy's relieved grin in utter startlement, feeling mysteriously healthy when he should have been quite unmysteriously dead.

"What...?" he began, only to be interrupted by a new round of shouting, the sudden scramble of everyone around him back to the hole he'd just been rescued from. Something told him that was important, but something else...something was missing. The radio--hadn't the radio been on earlier? Because now there was only dead air and that devouring ache inside his chest.

Had he...had he heard Cecil crying?

 _I can't,_ echoed through him as he sat shakily up, but the words, the voice, weren't his.

Christ. Cecil probably thought he was _dead._

It took three tries and dropping his phone once before he managed to dial Cecil's number, but then it just rang through, and leaving a voice mail didn't seem right. The desolation bearing down on him wasn't letting up, and though he could tell it wasn't his, it didn't feel a thing like the terror he--oh, _fuck,_ the terror he'd forgotten until just now, until something...something Teddy had done?...shook the memory of it loose. Terror and a voice telling him to call Cecil then laughing at his phone.

Well, maybe that made all the sense in the world, because Cecil wasn't _answering,_ and he needed Carlos, desperately, and _**Damn it, Cecil, would you LOOK AT YOUR PHONE.**_

There was a blessed instant of utter stillness inside as the relentless call stuttered and died.

In the very next instant there was a broken voice, tiny but hopeful, rasping into his ear. " _Carlos_?"

"I'm not dead," he said without preamble, hunching in on himself and covering his other ear with his free hand, needing somehow to _hear_ the shocked hitch of Cecil's breath, the half-moan of wounded joy Cecil couldn't contain. "I'm not dead," Carlos said again, more gently this time. "I'm fine. Everything's going to be--"

He nearly dropped the phone again when he realized what the earlier commotion had been. Teddy Williams had turned a fire extinguisher on the tiny defenders of the city beneath the pin retrieval area, holding them off long enough for three burly men from Jeremy Godfrey's birthday party to scramble up the steep incline with the Apache Tracker's limp and near-lifeless body in tow.

" _Carlos_?"

"I...I'll call you back, Cecil. Something's...come up."

When Teddy Williams glanced over and met his eyes, Carlos almost dared to hope, but then Teddy shook his head.

Jesus.

 _Don't ever call anyone into danger with you,_ he remembered with sickening suddenness.

He wasn't sure it counted as a failure or not when they volunteered.

***

As he put the station to bed at last, nearly an hour later than usual, Cecil forced himself to turn off every light, pet Khoshekh goodnight and shout a timid farewell through Station Management's door. He checked conscientiously to make sure he had his keys before he made his way--without running--to the front door. And then he stood there, all his eyes closed, until he was sure he could step outside without disappointment even if the street was empty. He'd finally felt his Sacrifice's call, an urgent demand that had burned right through his despair when he'd thought himself most alone. He'd even had ten whole minutes alone with Carlos under the lights above the Arby's before a panicked intern had paged him back to the station and Carlos' team stormed the parking lot. It was more than he'd ever thought to have a bare hour ago; wanting more would be greedy.

But there Carlos was when Cecil stepped outside, just as promised, not that Cecil had ever truly doubted. Carlos had questions and Cecil had answers; best not to think of it as more than that. This time he'd be more careful.

Clearly he was already making a mess of things, though, as Carlos was regarding him with a tilted head and a frown.

"Are you sure you want to do this now?" Carlos asked uncertainly. "I know you've had a rough night...."

"I should be asking you that," Cecil said with a shaky laugh. "If you'd rather, it can wait until tomorrow, or--"

"I'm fine," Carlos was quick to protest, straightening from his slumped perch on the hood of his car with his hands raised, palms out. "Really. I don't know what Teddy did, but...I'm fine. It's just...are you all right to drive?"

He must look a sight, though he'd splashed water on his face before he raced to the Arby's earlier. He'd been so distracted when he'd looked in on Khoshekh, he hadn't even glanced at the mirror. He usually tried to avoid those anyway, in memory of his mother.

"Probably," he said with a brave smile that turned confused when Carlos shook his head.

"Come on," Carlos said quietly, jerking his head at the other side of his car. "I'll take you home."

He didn't mean it, Cecil reminded himself. He didn't mean it like _that,_ and anyway, how shameful was it for the Sacrifice to be looking out for the Fighter? Although really, that was what a Sacrifice _did;_ some of them were just better than others at letting their Fighters pretend otherwise.

He tucked himself up small and still as he climbed into the passenger seat, kept his wayward knees and elbows to himself so that Carlos wouldn't have to brush against him as he shifted gears or rested his arm. What happened at the Arby's could have been a fluke, he told himself as he carefully ignored the sidelong looks Carlos kept shooting him. Rushing into things was what had gotten him into this predicament in the first place.

He nearly flinched at the soft brush of something trailing down his arm, but it was only Carlos' hand coming to rest hesitantly on top of his own. The touch didn't last for long--Carlos still needed it to shift--but once he was done, his hand drifted right back where it had been.

The second time, Cecil turned his palm up to lace their fingers together, and Carlos let him.

When they pulled in at Cecil's apartment building, they sat in silence after Carlos turned off the engine, hands still intertwined. "Do...do you still want to come up?" Cecil managed to ask after clearing his throat.

"If that's okay." Carlos still didn't look convinced that Cecil wasn't about to die on the spot, which was ridiculous; the closest thing Cecil had seen to fighting that day was when he wilted utterly under Morris' measuring, paternal stare.

"Of course!" Cecil replied brightly, a little flustered that his Sacrifice was being so polite. If Carlos had grown up in Night Vale, he'd know that everything Cecil had was already his, Cecil included. He'd always be welcome.

Glad that he'd left the place clean that morning, Cecil let Carlos in and bustled nervously between the living room and the kitchen area. "Do you want anything to drink?" he called over his shoulder as he went to peer inside his fridge. "Oh--sit down, please--make yourself comfortable. There's water, orange milk, vodka, tomat-ohh, I don't think that's tomato juice, actually; never mind. Do you want the radio on? Or the TV? I could make cookies."

"Cecil."

He nearly banged his head on the top of the refrigerator jerking up at the soft voice coming from only a few feet behind him, but when he whirled around, Carlos was watching him with a smile of mingled fondness and concern.

"Um...yes?"

"I can get it, if that's all right. You should go sit down."

Gods. He had the best Sacrifice _ever._

"I'm sorry," he blurted, horrified at himself but unable to stop. "It's just--I waited so long, and then you were finally _here,_ and...I thought you were dead. I thought...."

Carlos' left hand reached up to cup his shoulder, steadying him with its solid warmth, but Carlos still looked uncertain; Cecil checked his automatic sway into Carlos' touch, the need to wrap around him tightly and shake himself to pieces.

"You waited for me," Carlos repeated carefully, eyes begging for understanding. "Because...I'm your Sacrifice."

Cecil's smile went a little watery, but he couldn't help it; even if he didn't know what it meant, Carlos was saying it properly at last. "And I'm your Fighter. We share a name."

Carlos looked perplexed. "I'm not a Palmer," he said helplessly. "Unless we've gotten Vegas married by Night Vale standards, in which case--"

Cecil laughed, giddy with delight that Carlos didn't seem upset by that idea at all. He'd hoped that Carlos might be interested in the same way, but it didn't always happen, and for all Cecil's watching, he hadn't caught Carlos giving anyone in Night Vale a second glance. Only Cecil himself, and that could just as easily have been paranoia. "Not that kind of name," he chided, trying not to grin. "This," he said, pointing at his own forehead but careful not to touch the mark. "I suppose you could say it's not a proper name, but it's older than writing--maybe older than language--so I don't see the problem."

"The...eye?" Carlos asked, ignoring Cecil's pun. To be fair, it hadn't been a very good one.

"You are the Sacrifice for Seeker," he explained in his most solemn voice. "I am the Fighter. I will always follow your orders; my words are the voice of your will. In return, when we fight, you are my shield, and I will always, always defend you."

Carlos looked floored. "Wait. Fight? Hold on. Just to be clear...you haven't ever wanted to lay me out on an altar and drain my blood for dark rituals or...that sort of thing?"

Cecil groaned. "Gods, no. There are so much _nicer_ things one can do on an altar, and while a little consensual bloodletting is _fine,_ draining someone completely? That's just rude. Jerks who ask for _that_ don't get summoned back twice, I can tell you."

He suspected he'd volunteered too much again; Carlos had the wide-eyed look of someone desperately searching for the punch line, determined to keep hunting until he found it. Cecil bit his lip. Why could he never keep his mouth shut?

Carlos ducked his head and shook it quickly, but he squeezed Cecil's shoulder without letting go. When he looked up again, he met Cecil's eyes with a hint of amusement. "All right," he said, "clearly I'm missing something here. Can we start from the beginning? After I get us--did you need anything, Cecil?"

"Just water, please," he said, nearly slumping with relief. Carlos wasn't running. He was still interested in what Cecil had to say. Maybe this wouldn't end in complete disaster after all.

It could have been uncomfortable, watching from the couch as Carlos puttered around his kitchen, searching for glasses and coercing the trays in the freezer into giving up their ice. Instead it left him with a warm feeling of domesticity. His Sacrifice, making himself at home. It was better than a dream.

And then Carlos handed him his glass and sat down so close beside him their knees brushed, and it was all Cecil could do not to melt on the spot.

"So?" Carlos asked, clearly unaffected.

Right. He had an explanation to give.

He would have managed it much more coherently, he was sure, without the warmth of Carlos' thigh seeping into his own.

***

He was sitting too close. Or at least he was sitting closer than he would have deemed safe or comfortable even a few hours ago, but now he had a sneaking feeling that he wasn't sitting close enough. Cecil had looked terrible when he stepped out of the station that night, anxious and drawn, and though he'd always had a tendency to stare at Carlos like a starving man at a feast, the edge of raw desperation was new.

Listening intently to Cecil's rambling account of warping spheres and spell battles, he wondered if he could believe any of this and decided he'd seen stranger. The sheer apology in Cecil's tone when he explained what made a Sacrifice so necessary, the spells he was expected to draw like a lightning rod, convinced him not only that Cecil was in deadly earnest but that he'd been an idiot for ever thinking the man would harm him. Breathing out a long sigh as every scrap of tension drained from him, he shifted his leg, nudging Cecil's knee with his own, and left it there when Cecil's breath hitched sharply.

"So spells are just...words," Carlos said experimentally, groping towards understanding. "I always thought--not that I believe...er, used to believe in magic, but--"

"You were expecting rituals and incantations," Cecil summed up with an amused half-smile.

"I may have flashed on Harry Potter when Teddy was...doing whatever he did," Carlos admitted, grinning when that wrung a helpless hoot of laughter from Cecil.

"Harry--oh gods, I can't possibly tell him that," Cecil mumbled through the hand he'd clapped over his mouth. It was the same tone anyone else would have used to say, _That's adorable._ "But, um...no," he tried to explain as he gingerly dropped his hand, faltering just perceptibly as Carlos captured it neatly in his own. "No, uh--there's a difference between ritual magic and battle magic, but most of what you see and hear are just...props. If it's not a direct offering, then the words you speak and the candles you light are just a focus for your will, which is all magic is in a nutshell. Ritual magic takes greater focus, hence the more elaborate spells. Battle magic is all about focusing your will _very_ quickly and very strongly; having something to shout helps you push your will on the world."

"Sympathetic effort," Carlos theorized and was rewarded by Cecil's delighted grin.

"Exactly! The trick is in learning to deflect the spells aimed at you while coming up with something your opponent can't counter."

He suspected that in any battle involving words and voice, Cecil was one of the town's heaviest hitters, but exploring that hypothesis could wait. "Speaking of opponents...you said we come in pairs. Are we all marked like this?" he asked, reaching up with his free hand to touch the edge of his mark.

He wasn't expecting Cecil to gasp, for his hand to clutch at Carlos' as his spine arched in unmistakable arousal. Carlos snatched his fingers instantly away from his brow, but he tightened his grip on Cecil's hand at the man's panicked whimper and pleading eyes. "Cecil? What did I do? I--fuck, can you _feel_ that? Have I--oh, Christ." He'd been touching that thing since the moment he arrived in town, and now he remembered that very first incident, Cecil breathless and wrecked on the radio because Carlos hadn't _known._ "Cecil. I am _so sorry._ "

Cecil's ragged laugh seemed to be aimed mostly at himself, some of the light dying out of his eyes as he shook his head. "It's all right. I realized a while ago that you didn't...intend anything by it."

It came to him suddenly that Cecil thought he didn't want him, when if it weren't for that first misunderstanding, Carlos would have clubbed Cecil over the head and dragged him back to his science cave like a proper Neandertal months and months ago. So maybe Cecil wasn't the only one who should be paying attention to damage control here.

"What does it feel like?" he asked abruptly, rubbing his thumb soothingly over Cecil's knuckles at the startled look he was given.

"It--" Cecil thought better of whatever he'd been about to say until he searched Carlos' eyes. "Like you're touching my soul."

"Will you show me?" Carlos asked, holding Cecil's nervous gaze steadily.

That was apparently Cecil's cue to flush to the tips of his ears.

"I...it's really very... _overwhelming,_ and--which isn't to say it's bad! But I just...it might be...more than you--"

There didn't seem to be any help for it, but Carlos couldn't say he minded. As he leaned closer, Cecil's uneasy babble fell silent even as his eyes grew wide--all three of them, though the bold, black lines of Cecil's mark shifted so subtly the change nearly went unnoticed. "Amazing," Carlos breathed, wondering if it had always been animate, what stimuli it moved in response to, whether his own mark, unnoticed, had been doing the same.

And then he realized he'd gotten distracted, too close but still too far away, as Cecil shuddered from the warmth of his breath.

Closing the last few inches between them, he pressed his lips to Cecil's brow and felt the world as he knew it crumble around him.

He'd expected the touch to feel sexual from Cecil's reaction, a direct line from Cecil's name to Carlos' cock, but it wasn't that simple. The sensation couldn't be defined in terms of skin or heat or pressure, but it reached into him in ways that made him think dazedly of new senses coming suddenly online, vital new organs unfolding painlessly at his core. That it didn't feel wholly unfamiliar surprised him, but he'd felt echoes of this before, fleeting and pale. Lonely. Not like this.

Touching their name was the most tangible proof he'd ever gotten that he wasn't alone, would never be alone, and _that_ was what made him groan into Cecil's warm skin, nerves on fire and cock a stiff line pressing at an uncomfortable angle inside his jeans.

"Carlos," Cecil groaned, left hand settling on Carlos' side to steady him, and when exactly had he straddled Cecil's lap again? He'd buried his right hand in Cecil's hair, his other wound tightly still with Cecil's long fingers, and that was...good. Safe. He had no call to be molesting Cecil without talking things through first, not when he suspected there was more to Cecil's devotion than attraction alone. He should probably take things slow. Do this right.

"Sorry," he breathed, sitting back a little and dropping his hand from the back of Cecil's head to curve along the ball of his shoulder instead. He should probably climb off Cecil's lap altogether if he wanted the apology to be believed, but he wasn't sure he even meant it. He _wasn't_ sorry for kissing Cecil, only that he might have overstepped himself in some way he didn't yet understand.

"Don't be," Cecil said with a hazy little grin, clearly not displeased in the slightest. "I'm yours."

Carlos frowned, uncertain. It sounded so absolute when Cecil said it like that, and Jesus, he didn't want to _own_ the man; most days he barely remembered to look after himself. Only Cecil was looking nervous again, like he was afraid he'd said too much, and...maybe. "Is this like the Sacrifice thing?" Carlos asked, purposefully settling in when it looked like Cecil would shrink away. "You saying one thing but me hearing something else?"

Cecil's brows shot up at that, but his eyes turned thoughtful, and it wasn't long before he broke into a smile.

"Carlos," he said, sliding his hand up Carlos' side and over his chest, brushing the backs of his knuckles along Carlos' jaw. "You can do whatever you like," he said simply, which made Carlos' heart stutter for too many reasons, not least of which being the ghost of a caress that traced the lower curve of the eye branded into him. For a moment there was a palpable connection between them stronger than the press of Cecil's fingers, and he wanted to wrap himself up in it even as he realized he'd never truly been without it, and thought suddenly that he maybe, dimly, understood what Cecil was trying to say.

Cecil smiled and said it anyway. "We're each other's."


End file.
